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My little dog is not half rat
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My little dog is not half rat
  There’s a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the names of dog breeds. Probably you’ve all heard Rottweilers called “rockwilders,” or Doberman Pincers referred to as Doberman “pinchers.” I wonder if that’s why those dogs have reputations for being aggressive. I never owned one of those breeds. I had a German Shepherd for many years. I called him Dutch. Most people are familiar with the breed, but if anyone ever did ask me what he was, I probably said “German Shepherd.” I notice now that the AKC, the AP Stylebook, and my spellchecker all insist that you refer to these dogs as German Shepherd Dogs. Evidently that’s to distinguish them from Teutonic sheep-keepers.  That just seems silly. I mean, how many of you, when you read the second sentence in the preceding paragraph, thought I owned a guy of Germanic descent who directed sheep for a living? Never mind, I don’t want to know. To get back to misspoken dog-breed names: It’s mainly a problem of hearing the name wrong in the first place, and I can sympathize. Years ago, while ingratiating myself to a woman I wanted to interview for the newspaper where I worked, I remarked of the animal that met me at her front door, “What a cute dog. What is it?”  “She’s a bitch on wheels,” the woman said. This didn’t strike me as odd, because I’d never heard of a Bichon Frise and because, frankly, I’ve called my dogs worse names. Anyway, the dog liked me, and I got my interview.  If the names of dog breeds are sometimes difficult, the vast array of crossbreeds is exponentially more confusing. For instance my little dog, Gladys, is not half rat, even if I do sometimes call her a “rat-dog.” Rat Terriers are called that because they were either bred for, or just really good at, catching rats. Gladys has the long, slender snout that allows the breed to pull rats of their holes. When she plays with toys (very briefly, before Katy Big Dog confiscates them), she exhibits good rat-killing technique, shaking things the way she might shake a rat to break its neck.  I personally think Gladys lacks the drive and ambition to be a great rat-killer. I’m not sure how she’d fit the activity into her exhaustive napping schedule. We’ll never know, since she doesn’t have any rats to practice on here. Have I said how grateful I am that there are no rats here for her to practice on?  Nobody has really asked if Gladys is half rat, but this reminds me of an incident involving CatMilk®, which is a milk replacement product for cats and kittens. I bought some at the grocery one day. The young man who picked it up to put it in a bag for me looked at it and exclaimed, “Wow! I didn’t even know this existed!” It took a few seconds to reason out why he was so startled by my CatMilk®. When it dawned on me, I told him, “Oh no, it isn’t cat milk. It’s milk for cats.” “Oh,” he said, and tossed it into the bag, no longer interested. Back to crossbreeds. We used to call them mutts, or mongrels. But people who have registered breeds and allow the one to mix with the other seem to feel the need to give the results official names. The first I heard of, years ago, was a cockapoo: The progeny of a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle. My mom and dad came into one of these hybrids, who turned out to be a smart, friendly little dog named Spooky. But I’ve always wondered why these dogs are cockapoos, and not spoodles. Or maybe poococks.  Poodles seem to get cross-bred more than other breeds—maybe because their name lends itself so well to funny new names. Breeding them with Pekinese, Jack Russell Terriers, Maltese, Pugs, and Yorkshire Terriers has resulted in, respectively, the peekapoo, jackapoo, maltipoo, pugapoo, and yorkiepoo. Turns out, there is an “oodle” faction in the Poo X camp. (That’s really how people refer to the business of crossing poodles with other breeds, I looked it up). There are labradoodles, golden doodles, schnoodles (Schnauzer-poodles), and scoodles (Scottish terrier-poodles).  “Poo,” though, seems to have a commanding lead. I have to stop here a moment to marvel at the previous sentence, which is another of those I never envisioned myself writing, ever, under any circumstances. OK, I’m over it.  My big dog, Katy, is obviously part Labrador. Her mother, glimpsed briefly years ago, had markings like a German Shepherd (yes, the dog), but was much smaller. There’s no telling what Katy’s lineage comprises. Might this make her a muttador? A mongretriever? If I bred Gladys with a poodle, would the offspring be ratpoo? This is a hypothetical question—all our animals are neutered. Gladys is a neuterrier. The big question on my mind, and I’m sure on yours as well, is: What happens when you cross a poodle and a Shih Tzu?  |
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